


How Not to Make Friends in the Desert

by J (j_writes)



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank didn't leave Jersey until there was no Jersey left for him to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Not to Make Friends in the Desert

Frank didn't leave Jersey until there was no Jersey left for him to leave.

He headed west, trading in a wasteland he recognized for one he didn't, figuring that it might suck a little less if he didn't know what to miss. It didn't.  
______________

The sand of the desert hurt his lungs. It was the first thing he said, as the plants got shorter and the sun got brighter, as Toro drove over another state line that meant nothing anymore. He tipped his head back against the seat and looked up at the sky through tinted glasses that did him no good. "Going to need a fucking bandana," he said. His voice felt like gravel and asphalt, like something he'd left behind in another life and forgotten about until this moment.

Toro looked at him for the first time in days - really _looked_ at him. "We're going to need some fucking _gas_ ," he said. "And you're worried about your clothes."

It wasn't funny, but Frank snorted out a laugh anyway, because it was the closest thing to funny he'd heard in a while. "I'd also like a shower," he said, "if it's not too much trouble."

"Yeah, first day spa we see," Ray promised him.

Thirty miles later, the car gave out, and they started to walk. Frank tied one of Ray's shirts around his face, and tried to remember what breathing felt like.  
______________

They found nothing in the desert but time. More time than Frank had ever had in his life, more than he had any idea what to do with, so he decided to learn things. Where the roads had faded out, there were sometimes homes and schools, forgotten and collapsing, and where there were homes and schools, there were books.

He chose to read about things that were relevant, and that was how their hideaway came to be covered in scribbled sheets of notes about weapons.  
______________

He hallucinated the Ways. It was the third time – the worst time - he'd been sick since they left what remained of home, and he woke and rolled over to see someone in the doorway who wasn't Ray, someone whose hair was so bright in the sunlight that it hurt his eyes, someone whose hips tilted like Gerard's.

It was Mikey he imagined next to him, though, settling down and pulling Frank to him, the boniest pillow Frank had ever known, and Frank let himself bury his face in Mikey's lap, just for a minute, just until things stopped spinning. He closed his eyes and listened to Ray talk, wondering what he was saying but not invested enough to try to make sense of the words.

"Toro," he finally said with a voice that cracked, through lips that felt as ancient as the desert outside the window. "Toro, Mikey's here."

Ray was quiet for a long moment. "I know," he said, and the relief in his voice was one of the first hints Frank got that maybe he wasn't hallucinating anything at all.  
______________

Mikey got the radio to work.

They'd circle around and watch it, like some painting from when their grandparents had lived, the family gathering around to eat dinner and listen to their stories. Instead of stories, though, there was Dr. D, and instead of family, there was the four of them. It wasn't long before Frank forgot that there was any difference.

There were hints about the good doctor, stories as far fetched as anything they'd heard since getting to the desert, and they were the reason that Toro had headed this way in the first place, taking Frank with him. It was possible that his name had been Steve, that he had been someone they'd known in the music scene. It was possible that neither of those things were true, or that he didn't exist at all. They lived a life based on rumor and hearsay, the things that Mikey could gather from people he knew and people he had just met.

Together, they existed, and in the background, Gerard started to plan.

They knew the signs, had seen them all before, but Frank failed to put them all together until he was on the road with Mikey one day, riding shotgun, and Mikey turned to him to say, "Gee's been drawing."

"What?"

"Sketches," Mikey said, "plans. A map, I think."

Frank thought about this. "Toro's been building things," he said. While he read books on weapons, Ray had been gathering every tattered electronics magazine he could get his hands on, and lately he'd been spending hours in a corner, tinkering with wires, causing the occasional small explosion. _Thinking_ was his reply when he'd get asked what he was doing, and eventually Frank forgot to keep asking.

Mikey eyed him before turning back to the road. "You in?" he asked.

Frank looked out at the dust blowing by. He thought about saying that he needed to know what he was in _for_ , but he was pretty sure he and Mikey would both know what a lie that was. It was Gerard, and Toro, and Mikey. He'd been in since the night he'd stood on a chair to see them onstage for the first time.  
______________

The DJ's name was Steve, and he did exist. He also remembered them.  
______________

"She's not one of your dogs, Frank," Ray said, even his hair looking more agitated as he opened a can and passed it across the table to Mikey. "You can't just let her follow you home, feed her every scrap of food you can get your hands on, and dance her around to terrible pop songs. That's not how things work."

"I know that," Frank told him, scooping some chow from his can and licking it off his finger.

"Do you?" Toro asked, his eyes narrowing.

"I'm not entirely unaware of the state of the world, you know," Frank said sharply. "That's my gun keeping you alive a quarter of the time."

Ray nodded. "I know," he said quietly.

"Plus," Frank gave him a shit-eating grin, "I never managed to teach any of my dogs to shoot grenades."

He could feel Ray's eyes disapproving at his back as he got up, took his can, and joined Gerard outside, leaning against the wall and taking a long drag from the cigarette he offered.

"Ray's not wrong," Gerard told him, squinting up against the sun.

"He usually isn't," Frank said. He considered for a moment. "Except it's probably more like a third of the time. He's kind of a terrible shot."

Gerard smiled, but it was hollow. "He's a guy who needs a guitar in his hands instead of a gun."

Frank nodded, and didn't mention the fact that he, for one, felt more at home now with the gun.  
_____________

"Slow down, motorbaby," Gerard said, laughing, looking up from his map and folding it carefully as she tore into the house, panting, her radio clutched in her arms like a child from another time would have held a doll.

"Just," she gasped, "hang on, lemme," and she grabbed a plug from Ray's hands, plugging in the radio and plunking it down onto the table, turning dials frantically until Dr. D's voice echoed through the tiny room. "There," she said, resting her hands in fists against her hips. "Listen!"

They listened, and they heard themselves.  
______________

He lay stretched out on the ground, struggling to breathe, and he ran his fingers over the gun by his side, not quite able to grip it, just able to feel the paint peeling under his touch, staring up at the clouds rolling over them and remembering Toro finishing the Vend-a-Hack, handing it over to Mikey, Mikey's intent face as he got the machine to spit out a shiny new raygun.

"This one's yours," he'd said, and he'd pressed it into Frank's hands.

Gerard had been the one to paint them, careful and deliberate, and Frank had turned his over in his hands before it was dry, smudging the design. "You're gonna ruin it," Ray had warned him, but Gerard just looked up from painting Mikey's and grinned.

"Nah, he's just making it his own."

Frank lay with his fingers on his gun, and he looked at the sky. _Keep running_ , he heard, and let his eyes drift closed.

"I'm trying," he mouthed, and he closed his fingers around the gun.


End file.
